One of North Carolina’s most powerful Republican lawmakers said that he and his GOP colleagues have raised average teacher pay in North Carolina by more than 15 percent in three years.

PolitiFact NC looked into that claim and ruled it Mostly False.

In reality, the average teacher has seen a raise of about 10.8 percent in the last three years. So Berger’s claim missed the mark – and he also failed to mention that the GOP has been in charge of the state budget for the last six years, not just the last three years.

In the first three years of budgets written and passed by Republican lawmakers, average teacher pay declined every year. So in the total span of GOP control, average teacher pay has risen about half as much as Berger’s claim.

Berger did point to a state document that initially seemed to back up his 15 percent claim, but it applied only to the state’s portion of teacher pay and also relied on accounting tricks to reach that number.

PolitiFact defines “Mostly False” as a claim that “contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.”

Email: Truthometer@politifact.com; Twitter: @PolitiFactNC

Our ruling

Speaker: Sen. Phil Berger

Statement: Says GOP legislators have raised average teacher pay by more than 15 percent in three years.

Ruling: Mostly False. The average teacher’s pay has risen by 10.8 percent in the last three years. And over the entire time GOP legislators have been in charge of the state budget the total raise has been smaller, since pay fell in the first three budgets that Republican lawmakers wrote.

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